Skies of Arcadia
For: Dreamcast
Genre: RPG
Reviewed by: Escee (Brandon)
Developer: Overworks
Publisher: Sega
Released:11.14.00
 
Up until now, Sega's Dreamcast didn't have any major, groundbreaking RPGs. The best effort until now was Evolution, which was a very mediocre RPG with a nonexistent exploration factor and random dungeons. Well, the RPG draught has come to an end on Dreamcast. Not one, but two amazing RPGs are here. Skies of Arcadia is the first, and Grandia II is the second.

Skies of Arcadia takes place in the world of Arcadia, where everything is set in the skies, under the six moons, and ships sail the clouds. In Arcadia, pirates known as Air Pirates sail the skies. There are two factions of Air Pirates: the Black Pirates, who attack unarmed ships and loot their gold; and the Blue Rogues, who act as "Robin Hoods," boarding armed enemy vessels and looting them to be able to help those in need. You take the role of Vyse, son of Dyne, a Blue Rogue Captain. You will, with your childhood friend Aika, meet a mysterious girl on one of your raids of a Valuan ship. This girl, Fina, will lead you on an epic journey to stop Valua from ruling the world by controlling the six moon crystals.

Spanning two discs, Skies of Arcadia features an epic story. You will meet a few characters along your journey, but as, up until the very final battle, your fourth party member is set in stone, the characters develop very well (unlike Chrono Cross's 40 characters) and all have extensive backgrounds that are uncovered as the story progresses. Drachma (an old sailor who is the first side character you meet) has a very touching story, and he tries to hide his emotions at first, but by the end of the game, you see his true feelings. Character development is top-notch in Skies of Arcadia.

The only complaint I had with Skies of Arcadia is that it didn't handle battles the way that Chrono Cross or Grandia II did, meaning that Skies has random battles. While the random battles are not that bad, they do occur frequently, although not any more frequently than those in Lufia and the Fortress of Doom (SNES). Sometimes they can get annoying in the sky, but in dungeons they seem quite less frequent.

Skies is a pure traditional RPG at heart. I found it quite easily comparable to Lufia. (You can download Lufia from my emulation site here) It is turnbased, like Lufia. It has a relatively large world map with many different cities, like Lufia, although Lufia's world map was larger. You level up like Lufia and, more importantly, you learn your magic spells as you level up, just like in Lufia. You have critical hits, four party members, traditional dungeons (the dungeons in Skies were awesome - they were large enough to provide a challenge, but not confusing enough to annoy or frustrate you - awesome job on the dungeons!!).

The battle system in Skies is not just a battle system. It is two entirely different battle systems. You have your standard battle system, for foot battles, and a ship battle system against large monsters or other ships. Both battle systems revolve around the use of "Spirit Points." Every turn, you gain Spirit Points (as you level up, you will gain more Spirit each turn), and you can accelerate this process by "focusing." (which forfeits that character's attack for that turn). Each character has special attacks (you teach them these moves by collecting "moonberries" in dungeons and, occasionally, as a pickup after battle) which are very high in graphical quality and are somewhat comparable to the "summons" in Final Fantasy VIII, as far as the fact that they are high in graphic quality, are long and drawn out (well, at least the later special moves), and you can't skip them. However, I never once wished that I could skip them. They are a joy to watch and aren't drawn out enough that they get overly annoying. You also have a magic system, and you learn magic spells of six different colors (which map to the six colored moons) depending on which color you allocate to your weapon (you can allocate any of the six colors to any weapon at any time). Magic also uses Spirit, but, unlike S-Moves, also uses the standard Mana Points (MP). However, in Skies, each and every spell only uses 1 MP, but varying amounts of Spirit. Since each spell only uses 1 MP, your characters have relative little MP, so for healing you must manage your MP and carry crystals to restore your MP.

The ship battle system is quite unique. You assign each of your party members to fire cannons, defend, cast magic (healing magic or, once you get the Magic Cannon, attack magic), or fire the S-Cannon. You will, later in the game, get your own ship, be able to recruit your own crew, and build your own base. This is an awesome feature. I loved being able to use my crew's abilities in battle, and have them open up stores in my base. Skies also has a discoveries system, which allows you to seek out discoveries throughout the game's world. There are about 50 discoveries you can find and this gives you reason to play the game again.

Update: One thing that could have been better was the monsters. Not so much the design of the enemies, but the fact that many mosters looked the same but were stronger and were colored differently. You'd encounter stronger versions of a limited number of monster types as you worked through the game. This isn't necessarily a gaping fault, as two of my favorite RPGs (one of my favorite RPG series), Lufia and the Fortress of Doom and the prequel Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals both had this trait as well. It could have been improved, and had more unique types of monsters, but it's not a gaping fault. I just thought I'd point it out.

Graphics
The graphics are stunning. This game doesn't need FMVs to drive it the way that Square's games do. The entire game in played in full 3d (even the world map, unlike most RPGs). The Super-Moves look awesome as does the entire game.
 
Sound
Skies of Arcadia has a fairly impressive soundtrack, although it is nothing a step above the rest. A few of the tracks are especially impressive, notable the tracks of ship-to-ship battles and Ramirez's track. The sound effects are awesome. The voice acting (which is implemented only at events of interest, such as super moves, and "thank you very much") is well done for Vyse, Aika, Fina, Drachma, and Gilder, but Enrique's voice is poorly done. Also, sometimes the voices in battle can get annoying since they are repetitive, most notably, Aika's "Omega Psyclone" and Fina's "let's try this" (when you use an item in battle).
 
Gameplay
Skies has a wonderful storyline with well-developed characters. The only thing that could have been better was to include no random battles, but even that is debatable, as Skies was trying very hard to be a traditional RPG, and random battles are the making of a traditional RPG. The dual battle systems are a great combo, and owning your own ship, crew, and base is awesome.

Control
Since this is a fully-3D RPG, it uses a camera, and the camera is perfect. It never got stuck once - ever. The controls are also great - flying your ship is easy with the Analog Stick for steering and throttle, and the L/R Triggers for ascent or descent. The dungeons are controlled in standard platform style and it works perfectly.
 
Lastability
While Skies doesn't have as much lastability as Chrono Cross, it still has an enthralling story that makes you want to play it again, as well as discoveries to find, crew members to recruit, and downloadable extras (such as an extra boss, weapons, and island) off the Internet.
 
Ratings

update7.27.1 | publish1.16.1

click on the above screenshots for larger versions.
 
images from zdnet and ign